Search "Al Gore" at Google News and the top four hits, displayed prominently because they have images (while the remainder do not), are:
(1) Al Gore's Science Called Fiction
(2) Town Official Defends Al Gore's Energy Efficient House
(3) Some Criticize Al Gore's Profits from Toxic Mining
(4) Polar Bears Agree to Settle Suite Against Publisher of Al Gore's An...
Link to search results.
Incredible!!
How did they do that? How did the wingers manipulate Google News so well, so that it functions as the Ultimate Swiftboat Attack? What an amazing coup. For the average non-tech mom/pop reader, the full force of Google's own brand will seem to back the attack. If they are even having difficulty assessing Faux News' "Fair and Balanced", imagine the power of this digital swiftboating, riding the back of Google's "neutral" brand.
Note that this is not Gore-specific: if they can do this to Gore, they can do this to Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Richardson,... (and Gore is "not even running", so imagine what carnage awaits the others who are in the race). Perhaps commenters can check the other candidates, and summarize results below. Big question, and a to-do collaborative item for this community:
How do we counter this?
Clearly, there's a tradition of defending ourselves on Wikipedia. But it seems that the wingers are way ahead of us on Google News.
Anybody got any ideas?
Postscript/Poll. I vaguely remember Kos chose a long time ago not to have www.dailykos.com entries come up on Google News. I'm sure there was a good reason, but I can't remember what it was. Can someone (re-)explain the decision in the comments?